Traceability and labelling

In Belgium, the Federal Agency for the Safety of the Food Chain (FAVV-AFSCA) is responsible for verifying compliance with the labelling requirements of EU regulation 1829/2003, and has a monitoring campaign for both food and feed.

In 2005, the agency ran GM tests on 113 food samples from food reserves, and on 95 samples from ingredients, and foods, from food manufacturers. In no case were GMOs found to be present in a quantity of more than 0.9 percent, and in nine cases were GMOs found to be present in quantities between 0.1 and 0.9 percent. In all cases, this presence was found to be adventitious or technically unavoidable. In all cases, measures had been in place to avoid the presence of GMOs.

In 2005, 160 samples of feed were tested for the presence of GMOs. Nine cases of nonconformity with the labelling requirements were detected. Almost all of them were results of the presence of GM soy.